


First Cat to Feed

by Castillon02



Series: Cats to Feed [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Cats, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 11:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8576623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: The story of how Q, with a little help from Bond, acquires a cat after Skyfall.





	

Q stared at the hot pink kitty crate full of squashed, yowling feline. The crate had clearly been built for a daintier cat than the poor sandy-colored fellow that had been stuffed into it. Was this a prank, a symptom of boredom by a 00 waiting for his new M to give him a mission? Or was it some sort of bizarre kindly impulse from a man who was, like Q, recovering from loss?

“You got me a cat?” Q finally asked, just to clarify that that was what was going on.

“You’ve got rats,” Bond said with a pointed glance around Q’s underground headquarters. It might have been lit up with fluorescent lighting and fancy smart screens, but in the end it was still a concrete bunker that smelled faintly of vermin and mold. “The shelter assured me that he’s a good mouser.”

They heard the thwap of one of the pellet-guns issued to Branch staff going off nearby. There was no answering squeak.

Bond smiled, and if it looked half-grim like Bond’s face always did, it also looked half-amused. “Not everyone here is as good a shot as you are, Q.”

Q refused to acknowledge this flattering accuracy. “Did you bring food and all the rest?” he asked.

“Of course.” Bond waved his hand in the air.

Bond must have set up some kind of message relay among the staff, because a moment later Simmonds came trotting around the corner and into the operations room with a trolley piled high with bags of cat food and litter, a covered litter box, food and water bowls, a cat bed, and a cat tree tall enough to live up to its name. “He gave me two hundred pounds and told me to buy cat stuff,” Simmonds explained. She was one of Q’s better field support technicians; she also wore black cat earrings every day.

Bond and Simmonds looked at him with anticipation. The rest of the people in the Branch were, with varying levels of discretion, doing the same thing.

Q sighed. “All right, let him out, then,” he said. “We’ll see if he proves his worth.”

Nobody actually cheered out loud, but unless Q missed his guess, the sudden rush of typing indicated a hundred “Yay!”s being sent over the department messenger program.

As soon as the crate door was open, the cat under discussion bounded out and slipped behind the cover of the nearest shelf. A moment later they heard a hiss, a scuffle, and a drawn-out wail of murine distress that cut off abruptly.

“I dare say he’s almost as good a hunter as you,” Q said to Bond, and this time Q didn’t hold back his smile.

“It takes a cat to deal with rats,” Bond said. Then he picked up the pink crate. “I borrowed it from the RSPCA,” he explained. “You’ll have to find one of your own if you want to return him.”

The cat peeked his pink nose out from behind the shelf, peering around at his new surroundings. A restrained “Awww” rose up from the watching Q Branchers.

“Somehow I don’t think I’ll have that problem,” Q said dryly. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
